Saturday, 28 January, 2012


Article by Jim Harris in the Huffington Post on the World Economic Forum in Davos. http://huff.to/yvfW5Y
Two notable quotes from the article; ""...Capitalism, in its current form, no longer fits the world." A statement from an occupy protester? No, it was uttered by WEF Founder Klaus Schwab."

"...So if corporations want to attract and retain the best and brightest employees as baby boomers begin retiring en masse, they will have to focus on the social good to ensure their social license to operate. A large number of the participants at WEF are highly idealistic. One such group is the WEF's Young Global Leaders."
A similar sentiment was expressed by Ralph Nader back in Jan 2007 at the Engineers Without Borders National convention in Montreal.  As I noted in my blog at the time, http://stephenlafrenie.blogspot.com/2008/01/ralph-nader-address-to-engineers.html, as part of his key note address to the young delegates he stressed (in the context of international development aid) the fact that the corporate model is dominating and that this has to change. Academic science vs. corporate science / Academic engineering vs. corporate engineering. He advised the people in the room not to waste their talent and ability. Most young people in the room could become very wealthy using the corporate model with very little effort or real thought. But what would they achieve? Young engineers should be guided by a moral obligation to use their knowledge for the greater good of humanity and not as a tool to merely achieve wealth. In the article Jim states that he isn’t entirely pessimistic and, although this is good, the reality is that young people emerging and establishing themselves in the corporate world have to change the corporate model.  One designed to achieve a parallel aspiration to balance the pursuit of wealth. It won't happen with this generation of senior corporate players so, as they should with politicians, young people need to stop waiting and build their own corporate models with social responsibility as the counter weight to wealth. Then change can happen.

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